Blog Tour | These Fleeting Shadows by Kate Alice Marshall | Author Interview

THESE FLEETING SHADOWS

Author: Kate Alice Marshall

Genre: Young Adult Horror

Publishing Date: August 9th, 2022

Number of Pages: 336

Synopsis:

The Haunting of Hill House meets Knives Out in a bid for an inheritance that will leave Helen Vaughan either rich…or dead.

Helen Vaughan doesn’t know why she and her mother left their ancestral home at Harrowstone Hall, called Harrow, or why they haven’t spoken to their extended family since. So when her grandfather dies, she’s shocked to learn that he has left everything—the house, the grounds, and the money—to her. The inheritance comes with one condition: she must stay on the grounds of Harrow for one full year, or she’ll be left with nothing.

There is more at stake than money. For as long as she can remember, Harrow has haunted Helen’s dreams—and now those dreams have become a waking nightmare. Helen knows that if she is going to survive the year, she needs to uncover the secrets of Harrow. Why is the house built like a labyrinth? What is digging the holes that appear in the woods each night?And why does the house itself seem to be making her sick?

With each twisted revelation, Helen questions what she knows about Harrow, her family, and even herself. She no longer wonders if she wants to leave…but if she can.

Content Warning: Harm to children/death of children – non-graphic and not on the page, but prevalent in backstory & plot, Death & dying, Body horror (surreal, not gory), Violence (against MC & others), Alcoholism (not a main character), Discussion of a lobotomy performed in the 1800s

Author Info:

Kate Alice Marshall is the author of young adult and middle grade novels, including I AM STILL ALIVE, RULES FOR VANISHING, and THIRTEENS.

She lives outside of Seattle with her husband, two dogs named Vonnegut and Octavia, and two kids. They all conspire to keep her on her toes.

Author Links: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Thank you to TBR and Beyond Tours, Netgalley and the author for giving me a copy of the book. Check out the other posts on the tour here.

Author Interview:

Q: Hi there Kate! I am so happy to have you here with us! Before we begin, do share some interesting facts about yourself with us!

Ans: Random facts about me:
 When I was very young, I had migraines that caused hallucinations, and would frequently see a vision of a hand with a metal spike instead of a thumb, and hear people shouting at me. My mother briefly worried I was possessed.
 My dogs are named after Kurt Vonnegut and Octavia Butler, but the canine versions have not achieved much literary recognition.
 I was such a wimp as a kid that I wasn’t even allowed to look at the covers of Goosebumps books, because they gave me horrible nightmares.
 I memorized the opening paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House in high school, and it is still one of my favorite passages.

Q: I honestly have just read the first few chapters of the book, and it seems really interesting until now! What can I, and all my readers expect going into the novel?

Ans: THESE FLEETING SHADOWS is full of strange and unsettling magic, dark pacts, and complicated mysteries. I think of this, along with my two previous books Rules for Vanishing and Our Last Echoes, as my “big weird” books—influenced by cosmic horror and the truly strange. I want them to be bizarrely beautiful and unsettling, and they take place in complex worlds that sprawl beyond the page. One of my favorite things in horror is the sense that the characters are encountering a small part of a whole which they can only glimpse. Mainly, though, this is Helen’s story, and it’s a tale about learning to face and embrace the dark parts of you and stand up for yourself.

Q: Paranormal activities seem to be a theme in this novel. Do you believe in them, for real? Have you ever experienced a paranormal experience yourself?

Ans: I am a complete skeptic when it comes to the paranormal, which doesn’t stop me from checking every once in a while just in case I’ve spontaneously developed telekinesis. I love ghost stories and tales of the paranormal, but I think that they tell us a lot more about psychology, culture, and history than they do about what happens after we die.

Q: The cover for this novel is really beautiful! What was the cover design process like?

Ans: From my end, the cover design process was quite simple—I got an email with the cover in it from my editor, loved it, and that was it! Of course, it was much more involved for the design team. Kristie Radwilowicz is the designer who created the cover, and she did an absolutely amazing job. Often we’ll have a few rounds of tweaks and adjustments, but this one was spot on from the very beginning. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to work with Viking’s excellent design team. I always know I’m in good hands with them!

Q: Lastly, what do you hope readers will take away from this novel?

Ans: I hope that readers will be truly creeped out at least once, of course. I never really set out to scare anyone with my books, but I do hope to haunt them a bit. If These Fleeting Shadows has a message, it’s about claiming your power and your worth, and I hope that people connect with that message. Most of all, though, I’m always hoping my readers have a good, twisty time, and enjoy peeling back the layers of the intricate world that Helen inhabits.

And that was it for today! Thank you to Kate for being here with us today! Let me know how you liked the interview!